The rupture: The opposite position and opposite emphasis related to the main purpose for this website (stated on my “About the Author” page) is that fundamental character which has been manifested in and through the churches since the second century. That character has many features. Among the most basic are a stark and wooden approach to interpretation and application of the Scriptures.
This character produces two kinds of works: benign and malignant. Benign works are those works which do not seek to really or significantly harm or injure others. Their proponents are grounded in immaturity. While they fall short of the will and unity of God, they are not condemning of others who are not in the approved circle. The proponents of malignant works, on the other hand, do seek outcomes which directly harm and injure others. They might use other terms than harm or injure, but the result is the same. They are condemning of others who do not submit to the approved interpretation and application of the Scriptures as held by the fixed group.
The malignant groups are generally focused on three areas: submission to the group and its leadership; justification before God (salvation) grounded in works, whether that be one work or certain works or many other works; and prophecy, mainly focusing on the second coming of Jesus Christ. Regarding this last area, even though the different groups (denominations) teach that their interpretation is the correct one – and there are significant differences in what they teach that the Spirit of God has revealed – they are all harmfully futuristic in their beliefs. If one does not ascribe to the interpretation of said group in their main areas, that person is condemned. Like the Jews of old who persecuted the apostolic assembly, they think they are doing God a great service! And like them, their love has grown cold! They abide in the flesh!
They who walk according to the flesh must repent! Hopefully, the believers in the benign group will hear Jesus, humble themselves, and submit to God in His honor and glory! Otherwise, they will continue to build with wood, hay, and straw rather than with gold, silver, and precious stones.
How did the churches get this way? What caused the monumental metamorphosis leading away from the Spirit of God and into the doctrines of men? The dishonor of God is the cause.
The honor of God is essential to fully understanding God and His purposes. It is paramount to being filled with the Spirit of Jesus. It is fundamental to fully fellowshipping with the Father!
The honor of God is mentioned positively 19 times in the New Covenant Scriptures. This is the honor of God ascribed to God. By positively I mean that real and non-hypocritical honor of God. Hypocritical uses such as, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me” recorded by Matthew are not counted here.
Here are the ascriptions:
5 times in John’s narrative of Jesus
2 times in Romans
2 times in 1 Timothy
3 times in Hebrews
1 time in 1st Peter
6 times in The Revelation of Jesus Christ
When applied to mankind, the word honor means honor – esteem, value – valuables, price, and money paid. When applied to God it reveals its transcendent meaning. It means to esteem to the highest degree. As understood by the references above, such esteem is the bedrock and zenith point of all believers’ relationship to God through Jesus. Honor is so essential as that which is due to God that it often stands next to the word glory or in in the same group of like words. Glory means dignity and manifested glory. Honor stands to glory much like kindness stands to goodness. While the words can be interchanged, when they stand together they are emphasizing two attributes. Kindness focuses on the inner characteristic and goodness on its outward manifestation. In like manner honor focuses on the inner characteristic and glory on its outward revealing or manifestation.
Here are the ascriptions of honor standing by or with glory within the same group of like words:
2 times in Romans
2 times in 1st Timothy (where eternal power is used in one of the instances instead of glory)
2 times in Hebrews
1 time in 1st Peter
6 times in The Revelation of Jesus Christ
When the governing attribute of honoring God prevails, those who hold firm in it abide in the fullness of the Holy Spirit of God in Christ Jesus. This is a leading attribute, as will be seen below, of the measure of the stature of the fullness of Jesus Christ. Correspondingly from God, the full power and might of His Spirit operate in His people: Love, purity, fruits, gifts, unction, anointing, and might for eternal living abide. When His people dishonor Him through lack of faith and lack of believing Him they wander. As stated above, this wandering is either benign or malignant. No matter the case, in both conditions God is dishonored and the doctrines of men prevail wherein the Spirit of God is quenched, His glory is sullied, and His people (who believe Him) are set at naught, if not outright blasphemed, by the wandering proponents.
It is established throughout the Scriptures that God deals with people according to how they respond to Him and deal with Him. Those who honor and obey Him are enriched. Those who dishonor and disobey Him suffer loss.
Of the Scriptural references give above, I will look at two sources for God’s honor and glory. How each person responds or remains determines whether they are enriched by God or suffer loss. After looking at the sources, I will give a summary of the long-time and current condition of the churches.
First, Paul wrote to his chosen associate Timothy to give him instructions on how to manage the assembly. After stating the facts about his own conversion, he made this summing declaration of praise to God, which reveals the warp and woof of the appointed faith of all believers: “Now to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory to the ages of the ages. Amen.” From there he continued to instruct Timothy on how to govern the assembly. Among the council of God’s will, that bedrock praise established upon truth was paramount in Timothy’s success as Paul’s delegate. Just so, it is also perpetually paramount in the mature faith and walk of all believers!
In the Revelation of Jesus Christ, every time honor is stated it has to do with the perfect and complete glory that is due to the Most High God Who has accomplished His will in the rule of His Kingdom through His Son. It is the ONLY worship due to Jahveh, Who has revealed His bowels of compassion and made known the power of His right arm of salvation through the victory that is now fully completed through Jesus!
All of the ascriptions in The Revelation should be properly attended to and employed by God’s people, first and foremost, in the love and worship to God. As regarding Paul’s word to Timothy, the ascriptions in The Revelation are also for the spiritual maturity and victory of God’s people! This great book is the only one that Jesus Christ authored. This fact is universally overlooked and the credit for authorship is give to His secretary, the Apostle John. This book is the book about the imminent end of the domain of sin and darkness and the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God manifested in His Son!
Immediately after the words of correction and encouragement to the seven assemblies in Asia, John was shown the throne of Jahveh and His heavenly attendants, with the understanding that He was about to accomplish His eternal purpose. The awesome sight was highly majestic. These were the first words issuing from the four living creatures (the cherubim of glory), the immediate throne beings of God: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, the One having been, the One being, and the One coming.”
And this was the immediate response: And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to the One sitting on the throne, to the One living to the ages of the ages, the twenty-four elders will fall down before the One sitting on the throne, and they will worship the One living to the ages of the ages, and they will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”
Immediately after this, John saw Jahveh upon His throne with the book of the imminent judgment and victory in His hand. No one except the Lion from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, was found worthy to open the book. Then John saw a Lamb, having been slain, standing in the midst of the throne of Jahveh. He had the seven Spirits of God. The Lamb, Jesus, went and took the book from the hand of Jahveh. When He took the book, the living creatures and the twenty-four elders prostrated themselves in majestic worship and the high praise of the Lamb because He was found worthy to open the book because of His redemption of God’s people by His atoning blood.
This was the immediately following response: Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.” And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, “To the One sitting on the throne, and to the Lamb, be the blessing and the honor and the glory and the might to the ages of the ages.” And the four living creatures kept saying, “Amen.” And the elders fell down and worshiped.
After all of this wealth of worship and its highest praise, Jesus gave to John the prophecy of the immediate fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose in the overthrow of Satan, sin, and death and the creation of the eternal heaven and earth. That purpose was realized through the fulfillment of the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven bowls of wrath.
In Summary: The point being made, the issue that cannot be missed without dire consequences, is that the highest esteem of God and His Son Jesus – the honor of God – is both fundamental and paramount in the maturity and realistic truth of the fullness of the Holy Spirit of the Father and His Son in the lives of His people. The honor of God is both the anchor and compass of the soul of mankind in the full-knowledge of God in Christ! Because the honor of God was not the ruling attribute that it should have been, the patristic churches went horribly astray. The leaders of those churches falsely interpreted the Kingdom of Jahveh and Christ Jesus by not believing the testimony of the prophecy of The Revelation of Jesus Christ. They made remote what Jesus declared was near at hand, right at the door! This was and is a great dishonor to God! Furthermore, the same trait of unbelief immediately manifested itself in their other doctrines of ultimate importance. Instead of believing that they were justified by believing in the atoning death of the Lamb of God, they held firm that mankind must add a work or works to the sacrifice of Jesus in order to be saved from sin! Additionally, they held themselves out as indispensable to salvation and truth through teaching that only in submission to their leadership, the so-called bishops, could one be saved. They usurped the place of Jesus Christ, and put themselves in His sole place. Instead of Jesus filling all things as The Apostle Whose mission was completed, The Prophet Whose prophecies were fulfilled, The Good Message of God fulfilled in the arrival of the Kingdom, The Overseer Who watches over and directs all of God’s people, The Elder Who instructs all of God’s people, The Servant Who helps all of God’s people; they arrogated to themselves the necessary ongoing functions of all of these titles. What was necessary and appropriate in the last days of the Age and Law of Moses, they extended forward in the maintenance of their awaited Kingdom of God. To these false doctrines their spiritual offspring have added many erroneous teachings of men.
The dishonor of God was the cause of the great rupture and departure from the truth of Jesus. It is the ongoing cause of the rupture and maintenance of error!
The remedy of faith:
“Now to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory to the ages of the ages. Amen.”
“To the One sitting on the throne, and to the Lamb, be the blessing and the honor and the glory and the might to the ages of the ages.”
Amen! Hallelujah! Amen!